Discussion on:

So, not only are CO2 emissions actually contributing to climate change

And yes they really are...
But again, not only are they doing that, they're also increasing the acidity of the seas ... CO2 in aqueous dilution is H2CO3 : carbonic acid, like in your soda. Remember that scare experiment they showed you back in the day, where they left a milk tooth in a glass of soda overnight, and it was just gone the next day?
Turns out, same thing happens to the shells of many food-chain-starters in the seas. Entire food chains of marine life can be devastated.
Historically, when the oceans tank, they tank hard. It is well documented that marine mass extinctions can kill off almost all marine life, and have done so several times in the past.

But you know, if it's happened in the past with no human contribution, obviously we can find lots of reasons not to do anything about it now...

{sarcasm}Don't you know it's all just a lot of poppycock, conjured up by left wing governments to scare people into accepting more taxation?

I was in Victoria last weekend and ended up at IMax watching a show about the coral reefs and how they are destined to complete doom if we don't act now. Of course, I had my picket sign held high, stating how its all a ruse to charge more for gas and then tax it more and more each week. (it is true that people on the left wing prefer supporting anything that means more taxation, they LOVE paying taxes so much that they seek out such opportunities).

Face it Ansu, mankind is here for eternity, the planet couldn't survive without us. We will simply adapt as needed, just like reptiles have over millions of years. Just look how well we've done and how much the planet benefited from us over the last 2000 years! I guess we can all take a bow and say "you're welcome!"{/sarcasm}

Don't you know that the world ends on December 21 2012 at 12 Midday? The Mayans told us so and it's only a few days away now.

Unfortunately I have to go to the Daughters Weeding a couple of weeks before the world ends so I have my work cut out for me. [/sarcasm]

Col

I'm gonna stand on my bosses desk and pi$$ on his head while laughing and waving the middle finger at him! Then I'm gonna smash all the computers, steal the petty cash and run out laughing hysterically! Gawd, only two weeks to go, I can't wait for my master plan to come to fruition.

Awk-waaaard.

If the world ends then I'm off the hook for buying all those ridiculous Christmas gifts as well.

what's a weeding? is that some sort of pot festival or something????

It's what the Wifes daughter is doing on the 12-12-2012 claiming that after living witht he guy for 8 years is the right thing to do.

I'm not so sure about that as if you look at the numbers 12, 12 and 12 and add them together you get her age.

I think it's just an excuse for 2 months latter claiming that it's OK to come home and disturb me more than normal. Also seems that the M$ Spool Chockers leave a bit to be desired.

Col

Maybe it will be lucky for them and I'm sure you wanted to get your yard cleaned up anyway. Sounds like shes still young enough to do it.

AV

She's getting married a long way away and we have to drive 80 Kms to it. Apparently having Classic Fords they are going to a Historic Village and want "Trustworthy" people to drive their cars. Apparently the silly people consider me on of those and they want me to take the most expensive one so it doesn't get any damage. Silly People Really. [/maniacal laughter]

Seems that I have to behave responsibly and they chose Wednesday to stop people bringing kids with them as they insist. Anyway the up side is other than being something I'm not I have nothing at all to do and I can not drive one of my "Wifes" Mercs, I have to drive a Big Yank Tank with airbag suspension and bounce it around. Only nice thing I can say about it is it's a lovely red color. Or maybe because the Edsel is the newest one that they have collected at the moment it's their most valuable car, so I'm not really sure what I'm driving but I do know that whichever one it is it's Left Hand Drive. That should be different.

Col

No driving that car 100 MPH (he he he). You have to behave yourself! What the heck is the Big Yank Tank with the left hand drive? Sounds like a challenge.

AV

Are about the only way I can describe them they have masses of metal panels with nothing but metal and very big cars.

The last Left Hand Drive that I drove was a Porsche GT2 or 3 not sure which and that most defiantly was not a Big car and it wasn't a road car either.

Nice to drive none the less.

Col

And the Edsel back to the reception. Over all the Edsel is the easier car to drive as it doesn't have these stupid things like a folding steering wheel that needs to be moved to-wards the passenger side to get in and out.

Of course the Bride was at home in the T Bird and wanted to drive herself there till her Lord and Master put his foot down and refused to give her the keys.

Then I had to drive the Chrysler Cruiser back to their home from the reception and that was downright nasty to drive. The person who was supposed to drive the Edsel was involved in a collision getting to the set off point and the Groom had to go and pick her up and pay the Tow Truck to bring the bent car back to his place so he was somewhat reticent to allow her to drive after that. Apparently crashing a car 500 meters from their front door was not a way to impress the Cars Owner.

Unfortunately when I handed them over all where straight I don't think that they bent them after I left either. As all 3 where parked away in their slots and hidden.

Over all the day went off without any real problems and now all I have to do is recover from the ordeal. People there even thought I was somehow involved with the bride and they kept calling me her father. I just replied No I'm her mothers husband.

Col

"The Earth is gonna do okay. Humanity's phuqued, but the Earth will be just fine.

Whether it's a habitat that can sustain human life or not, it will keep on spinning. It's amazing that, over 14 billion years, life has gown and developed many times, on occasion wiped out by natural disaster. However, in just 2000 years, we can screw the whole lot up and make it all but uninhabitable for ourselves. Mankind is SO bloody dense!! We think we are clever for all our inventions, language etc. , in reality we are the worst thing that ever happened to the big blue ball. Then again, if we are wiped out in even another 1000 years, it's barely a blip in Earth's timeline. Mankind will just be a boil that the Earth had to lance in order to carry on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flpPrRO1Tho

He agrees with me.

The naysayers and denialists....are not here.

Its like after years of saying "you're wrong", they just quietly say "guess you were right", and exit stage left.

Call me hopelessly naiive, but if we can land a spacecraft on Mars by remote control, surely there can be technical solutions to help sort some of this out.

The trick, of course, is to figure out how to come up with incentives to invest in technology solutions, and even models of industry/goverment partnership. since this problem is so big, expensive, and complicated to address that neither government nor industry can begin to solve it alone.

The brains and capability of both NASA and the US Military Industrial Complex are what is needed, and both of these have some excess capacity at the moment. The next race to the Moon or War should be a race to protect the planet or a War on climate change. Turn swords into...windmills?

And last but not least, there IS water on Mars, and it's not terribly hot there just yet.

or prepared to do their own research but rely only on the BS out of the politicians and the other self abusers after money for BS. Sheet, Mount St Helen's did more greenhouse gas emissions that the whole human race did in 100,000 years, and there are a few volcanic eruptions each year with a few major ones every decade.

The fact that greenhouse emissions are heavily effected by volcanoes is more of a reason to reduce further HUMAN impact on the globe. Look up the word: COMPOUND

'Why should I, I am not the biggest part of the problem.' is exactly the mentality the world needs to get rid of.

P.S. I NEVER listen to a word politicians say, but I also grew up exposed to science as opposed to faith.

I've never said humans don't contribute in some way, we do that by breathing. I also agree we should make all reasonable efforts to clean up the environment from human and natural damage. I have consistently said it was all due to human activities, have also consistently said human activities are a very minor aspect, as proven by the people who've been studying this for decades. I've also been saying the politicians and political scientists who push this as an urgent item are total BS artists.

We eat stuff, convert it to CO2, breathe it out, plants convert it to stuff, we eat stuff...

If you haven't paid attention and clued in to me yet, I've been around these forums for well over a decade now. I have read your past comments and wholly agree with many of your views on the matter. The comment I had replied to may have been my own lack of comprehension but it just came across as if you were dismissing the concept because volcanoes do more damage than humans. Not to be corrective but also not to ignore the real issue, as SO MANY politicians do. It's not all about Co2 emissions either. Co2 is not the be all end all of global warming. Co2 is simply one of thousands of harmful gases that contribute to the problem. Politicians like to focus their junk science on Co2 emissions and make it a focus because it is such a harmless gas in most cases, that its very easy to downplay the significant effects on the amosphere.
The one I'm most aware of and most concerned about personally, is CO. Carbon Monoxide is literally deadly to us. It is also the #1 most dangerous vehicle emission, which AirCare centres are most focused on testing for. With new cars emitting such low CO emissions, they are actually doing away with AirCare here for passenger vehicles as of next fall (FINALL!Y!!!). Unforutnately that takes SOME money out of my pocket too, nothing unmanageable though. Politicians and political scientists are a farce, lets replace POLITICIAN with 'Liar' and you get "Liars and Liar's scientists", which is MUCH more fitting.

In Canada, we really do have a luxury of being exposed to REAL science and REAL global issues from a very young age. Schools promote science in a big way, there is little to no focus on politics or religion but a massive focus on science.

Unfortunately, Canada, as a nation, sits at the very bottom of the list when it comes to our activity to reduce or stop greenhouse emissions and reducing our carbon footprint. In fact, we are merely a tiny step above Kazakhstan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. This I find embarrassing as we are a nation so proud of its natural beauty, which people travel from all around the work to enjoy. We can do more and we MUST do more, we can do better and we MUST do better, it is something we must take responsibility for as individuals. The poblem is, people DON'T take responsibility as they just look at someone else and say how much worse they are...as always in today's most pathetic excuse for society. Nobody is willing to accept personal responsibility and thus nothing gets done. If the government steps in with some ridiculous solution and mandates action, then those same people get all ruffled and bitch, while those who ARE actively doing their part, are imposed upon even more.

So, forgive me if I misunderstood your comment, it certainly seemed as though you pointed a finger and concluded, 'we have nothing to worry about, compared to the effects volcanoes have'.

Finland has the same exact problem. Even though most of the power is low-impact hydro (no massive dams or anything), getting to carbon neutral is fekking hard when it's pitch dark and shilt cold for 5 months of the year.
Paper industry, long as it lasts, has very bad carbon figures. Of course, it would be fair to make the end destination of that paper pick up the carbon tab, but Finland is on such a moral high horse that they can't bring themselves to argue strongly for the mitigation of the treaties.

Oh, dear. You're at it again.

You know, it's an absolutely trivial task to read a few (proper, scholarly, peer-reviewed) papers on the gaseous emissions from the Mt St Helens eruption and compare that to the anthropogenic CO2 production.

What it does is save you from looking like a complete muppet.

I'd really appreciate it if you would STOP posting completely erroneous information in such a pedagogic fashion and then I wouldn't have to post in return.

volcanoes both during passive periods and eruptions, and seen some of their estimates about the crap thrown out at Mount St Helens, Krakatoa, Pinatubo, Tambora, etc and the emissions like sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide, etc they put out plus the more solid material and what it does to the area. They measure most of the stuff in millions or billions of tonnes of each type of material thrown out.

Pinatubo put out over 20 million tonnes of CO2 in it's June 1991 eruption, how long does it take humans to produce that amount of CO2?

Sorry mate, but the facts from the real experts support me, not you or the BS put out by the politicians and some faux scientists.

if your value of 20MT is true, but it isn't. Estimates for the Pinatubo eruption are in the area of 0.04 to 0.05 GTonnes of CO2. Twice your estimate. Pinatubo was a VEI-6. I produce more CO2 in explosive dumps after a vindaloo curry.

Humans produced well in excess of 30 GTonnes per annum CO2 in 2010. That's a factor of 700.

Let's see if we can help your confusion! Pinatubo produced 40-50 MILLION tonnes of CO2 during the eruption. Humans produce over 30 BILLION tonnes of CO2 per annum.

I'm not an expert but I was a scientist, so I check multiple sources and estimate the provenance, consistency and authority of the data. And then I read it - properly - and then I draw my own conclusions.

Even VEI-7 eruptions like Krakatoa and Tambora, which occur one in a century, will only generate 0.1GTonnes. That's 100 MILLION.

If we get a VEI-8 then we'll probably get a measurable CO2 increase in the atmosphere but CO2 will be the least of our worries.

Suck it up.

You know, I did originally say a week but I forgot what units I was working in... Goes to show that you really should check everything and trust no-one.

If it happens while I'm alive, I hope it's Yellowstone and not Toba. After one of those, I'd rather go fairly quickly than hang around and slowly waste away.

..... in 10,000 years, give or take a few thousand. Plan accordingly; everyone should see Yellowstone at least once.

Could go tomorrow!

BBC made a reasonable docudrama about a full-on Yellowstone eruption set in the near future - Supervolcano. Interestingly, Mexico closed the boder stopping US refugees. You can pick it up on Youtube. The first eruption cuts loose in Part 4.

10,00 years or 10,000 minutes wouldn't make any difference. There's no problem, world ends in a few weeks anyway. Why not all just crack a beer and fugettabowdit !

Virtually all of it gets burnt, and turned into carbon dioxide. We're smoking up the planet at a pretty ferocious rate.

Some geological events put our efforts to shame... like the formation of the Deccan Traps. That's where a third of India cracked open and poured out lava for thousands of years. All kinds of species went extinct for that one.

You and all of the other Climate Change dupes are ...... well, you're just that - dupes.

Carry on with your self-indulgent circle jerk, ridiculing the "deniers", repeating the lies about anthropogenic global warming.

This is a dupe who's just asking...

I read an article in the London newspaper, The Guardian, which suggested that the phrase "Climate Change" was coined by the US Republican party some ten years ago.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange

Interesting. Please feel free to draw your own misconclusion about the article.

Hey, there are anthropogenic global warming / climate change dupes on both sides of the aisle.

I don't care who coined the term "climate change", but it was advanced (some time after it was "coined") to further the deception and/or avoid admitting that the "global warming" claims were being proven wrong; the earth has been in a cooling cycle for a dozen years.

Your article is from 2003. Okay, I'll call your 2003 article, and raise you a 1992 book, Earth in the Balance (retrieved just now from my very own book shelf).

On page 61, Al Gore actually places part of the blame for the French Revolution on climate, when he says, "....... it seems clear that climate-induced suffering in France from 1783 through 1798 played a major role in worsening the political mood in which the French Revolution took place." (He cites some Benjamin Franklin letters about an unusually think fog in France at the time. Ooooookay......)

"However, Gore goes on to say, "it seems just as clear that climate changes ........ Nonetheless, the effects of climate change on the political and social stability of civilization are powerful as we consider...... "

And on page 73, "Of course, the history of climate change is also the history of human adaptation to climate change......." (Adapt, not cap and trade).

So there you go, Neil. I think my 1992 book trumps your 2003 UK Guardian article.

How can I be sure? Be sure of what? Climate change? Or anthropogenic climate change? If it's the former, I am sure that climate patterns change naturally all by themselves. If it's the latter, I don't need to be sure. Those making the claims need to be sure, which they are not.

And their previous claims of doom and gloom have not even come close to coming true. Shall I quote from more of my books, Neil, about coastal cities being underwater in 25 years......... and so on...... ? Or should I pull out my Special Edition of National Geographic from 1984 when they predicted both environmental disasters AND the depletion of all of earth's oil supplies?

Except, of course, on page 410 (as a grand conclusion) Al Gore, the father of the modern anthropogenic global warming / climate change scam, predicts that in the fall of 2012, an anthropogenic climate-change-induced storm will bear down on the coast of New Jersey wreaking havoc and destruction ...........

(Hey, nobody around here has read the book, How do they know there's only 408 pages?)

To deny that the Earth's climate is, and has been, warming for several centuries is to deny observed data.
To deny that, overall, the last 10 years have been the warmest years on record is also to deny observed data.
To deny that humans could possibly have had an effect on the rate of warming is to ignore the output from our industrial society.

The only things, Max that are still subject to scientific debate are a) what has humanity's effect been on the rate of warming, and; b) can we do anything to slow it or to mitigate the effects.

Have you not been paying attention, or are you just being obtuse?

"a) what has humanity's effect been on the rate of warming?"

Answer: Somewhere between very little and none, most likely leaning towards none.

"b) can we do anything to slow it or to mitigate the effects.

Because of the answer to the first, any answer to the second question is moot. As such, any answer would fall into the NO category.

But you continue to avoid the most disturbing question:

Has the progressive movement hijacked this and all environmental issues in order to advance their own political agenda?

Answer: A resounding yes. And anyone who doesn't recognize it is either a fool and/or a dupe, or hasn't been paying attention. And there are those, of course, who realize it (although they might not acknowledge it) and they ride it for their own personal political reasons. I'm not sure which you are.

None? You understand the environment and climate so well? Please, be so kind as to provide the scientific evidence on which you base your conclusion.

Your question is only disturbing to you, Max, because anybody who is paying attention already knows that any group with a political agenda will hijack an issue to advance that agenda whenever possible. Witness the tea party and the national debt that doubled in eight years under a Republican President, but only became an issue when a Democrat was elected President.

I said, "......Somewhere between very little and none, most likely leaning towards none......"

You can take from that whatever you'd like. But apparently, just like you take "no" government from my call for "less" government, you lie about what I said here, too.

And you (you in the general sense) wonder why I spout off at people in my replies.

Nick, you deserve "the link" for that one.

But I still stick to what I believe: We contribute somewhere between very little and none, to any antroprogenic global warming and/or climate change, most likely leaning towards none - and I freely acknowledge that the majority of Americans have been duped so bad that they think I'm the looney tune. In reality, however, it is they who are the real looney tunes.

That you are constantly running from my challenges; you don't answer my questions; you lie about what I say; and you are intellectually dishonest (at worst) or disingenuous (at best). You love to spout, but you can't support squat. (I know, a double-negative; but it works.)

And you, Max, play the semantic sophist, tap dancing and hair-splitting when pinned down.

You claim it doesn't exist. The vast majority of climate researchers would appear to disagree. www.upworthy.com/the-most-devastatingly-convincing-pie-chart-youve-ever-seen

... that you left-leaning, progressive, collectivist-type thinkers use in your lame attempt to discredit people who "CHALLENGE" your assertions. To "deny" presupposes the truth is being presented, something you and all the other environmental looney tunes riding the global warming band wagon haven't even come close to doing.

Lame.

you don't "challenge" anything. You just wave your hands and restate your unfounded street-man belief that the overwhelming majority of scientists are somehow mistaken, and that your lack of facts should trump their stacks of measurements.

You're not a challenge... you're an ostrich with its head in a bush.

The most common usage I know of is "Holocaust denier". Those are the people who despite mountains of evidence (the Nazi regime were noted for being meticulous record keepers) from many sources, still deny that millions of Jews were killed in WWII.

Max, I am in no way shape or form desparaging you, or comparing you to a Holocaust denier. But I do think there are times when denier is a valid term.

Or are you suggesting it is? If not, what's your point?

It's clear to me that you took my exception to being called a "denier" and, for some reason, went off on a totally different tangent.

The charge of being a "denier" has NO PLACE in the anthropogenic global warming / climate change debate. Or do you disagree?

...was about the usage of the word denier in any context.

I was simply pointing out that there are valid contexts for it.

I don't believe that in the context of ANTHROPOGENIC warming/climate change, it should not be used. I do think there is sufficient evidence to show that climate change is happeneing at an accelerated rate. But as to man's impact and the extent of it, that is still something that all of us should approach openly.

The science is not in doubt... that's the strange thing here.
Or is it a coincidence that the non-facts of the world's most powerful lobbies are being given a near-equal standing in this "we should all be open" thing that's going around.